


Piece by Piece (Waiting for you to come home...)

by EmeraldEyes8917



Category: Game Grumps, Ninja Sex Party - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Arguments, Established Relationship, F/M, Making Up, Phones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 15:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldEyes8917/pseuds/EmeraldEyes8917
Summary: One evening, not hearing from Dan for hours, she is gripped with frantic worry which leads to an emotional confrontation where she has to wonder where she stands in this relationship.A Tumblr prompt from a nice anon who wanted to see this brought to life.  Please feel free to send any prompts or writing ideas to emerald-eyes-8917.tumblr.com .





	Piece by Piece (Waiting for you to come home...)

The fear of abandonment had always haunted her.

No matter how much she trusted anyone who grew close to her, or anyone she trusted in return, the vague, frightening concept of losing that person in any way imaginable would hang over her not unlike a malevolent shadow.

Since meeting Dan, her world view had changed to one of more selfless kindness, more so to improve her own life and the vision of herself in his eyes.

In her mind, he only deserved the very best.

It was still in the early days of their relationship when she would often worry about him, that he was eating enough, that he was taking care of his voice, that he was getting enough sleep and all else in between. 

When she asked him quite patiently to take care of himself, he would even tease her calling her 'Mother' and would receive a displeased frown in return.

"You worry too much, baby."

He would then beckon to her and she would be drawn like a magnet towards him, coming into his arms for many kisses and hugs that would ease her worrying.

That all changed one fateful night, when her own resolve would be put to the greatest test.

The day had been productive but busy for her in the office, and thankfully it was the weekend, at long last.

She sends a message to Dan as she leaves the office in the centre of the city, where she spent more time daydreaming of a better position as well as filing paperwork, telling him that she was picking up dinner and would be at his apartment soon.

After the drive to the takeaway restaurant and arriving in front of his apartment, after parking her car she checks her phone again, and notes that her first message had been delivered, but not read.

She sighs, knowing that he could sometimes be a slow responder in the evenings if he was working on Ninja Sex Party music or recording Game Grumps with Arin, so she let it lie for now.

Yet, the tiny kernel of doubt was in the back of her mind, ever present and not easily forgotten.

Upon entering his apartment with the key he had given her, she calls out his name, just in case he had taken a day off or was taking a shower, the former being quite unlikely given his incredible work ethic with his music career.

No response as her voice echoes around the deserted space.

She puts the dinner containers on the counter, and sends him another message, 'I'm just back in your apartment, I'll keep the dinner warm for you. See you later. xoxo'.

After a moment, when her heart does the telltale lurch of worry, she resolves to keep busy and does some light tidying around the apartment to occupy those intrusive thoughts, checking her phone about twenty minutes later.

There was still no reply from Dan.

Now the worry begins to set in with slow determination.

Her fingers are shaking as she types out another message, 'Dan, I know you tell me not to worry, but you haven't responded to any of my messages, it's getting late and I just want to know where you are. Please reply and let me know. xo'.

Placing the phone down on one of the armchairs, she paces around the apartment, hands in her hair and chest beginning to heave that bit deeper as her mind races with horrible imaginings and the dreaded question of 'What if?'

What if he had gotten into an accident? What if he had been struck down with pneumonia because he had been so run down? What if his stomach condition had become worse and he had to go to hospital? What if he was lying somewhere after being attacked?

A strangled whisper, full of anguish, "Danny..."

She reaches for her phone and dials his number, lifting it to her ear, listening to the constant dialling sounds until his voice cheerily announces, her last vain hope dashed, 'You have reached the voicemail of Dan Avidan. If you would like to leave a message, I'll call you right back. Otherwise, you can be a humongous loser and hang up. Bye!'

The beep of the voicemail is incredibly loud in her ear, even after the bright tone of his voice that would have made her smile on any other day, as she fights to keep her voice steady, "Dan, it's me, I'm just calling you to see what's going on. I've sent you messages and I just want to know if you're okay. Please call me or text me if you can, I am starting to get really worried about you. Please just let me know if you're okay. Bye."

As she hangs up, her face crumples as she begins to sob loudly, legs losing their strength as she collapses in the middle of the living room, slumping back against the sofa and knocking the cushions off, covering her face as tears stream down her face.

"Danny... Danny, where are you? Where are you, where are you?"

After another agonising wait of thirty minutes, careening between crying and screaming, there is a jangle of keys at the front door and she very nearly is rocketed off to the moon, so extreme is her fright.

The door opens and in walks Dan, larger than life and oblivious to the last, singing to himself with a smile on his face.

'You utter bastard...'

She does not give voice to these choice words, only stands quite slowly, eyes red, cheeks flushed and throat raw from crying, her stomach untying itself from the knots of fear and her heart thumping quite loudly in her ears.

As soon as Dan turns the corner and comes upon her in the living room, his first action is to give her a wave and would have almost said 'Hello' if not for the expression on her face.

"Baby?"

A pause.

"Hey... are you alright? You look... you look like you've been crying. What's going on?"

She takes the deepest breath possible, and asks quite softly, "Where have you been?"

Dan lets out an embarrassed laugh, and if she were any closer in his personal space, she would have strangled him for being so carefree in his attitude, "I was meeting Jim Roach to talk about UTC. I didn't think it would go on so long."

Her voice still remains quiet, though the temptation to start screaming at him is quite strong, "Danny... why didn't you reply to any of my messages or return any of my calls? Were you so busy that you couldn't even check?"

Tilting his head, Dan reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls out his phone and checks the screen, seeing the missed calls and texts from her, and in that instant, it hits home for him.

"Oh..."

"Oh... is that all you can say to me? 'Oh'. It's not like I was frantic with worry, thinking you were in an accident and what I would have to tell your friends and family that you were seriously hurt and I couldn't even find out what happened to you. That's all you can say to me?!"

Dan begins to frown, "Hey... just calm down, alright?"

"Calm down?! You had me worried sick and you're telling me to calm down?!"

Dan's eyes harden, his voice quite firm and not unlike a father speaking to a child, "I'm an adult and I'm capable of looking out for myself. Baby, you're nearly hysterical and you don't have to be like this. I'm here now and everything's fine..."

Frustrated, she kicks the side of the sofa, close to tearing her hair out, "It's not fine, and don't you dare try to brush this under the rug! You don't want me to worry about you, is that it?! You want me to act like I don't care about you, about what happens to you?!"

Dan throws his hands up, clearly exasperated, "I'm not saying that at all, and you are acting like a child, so calm down!" 

Dan had never raised his voice to her in the entirety of their relationship, and she cannot stand the sound, but she was not about to back down quietly.

She starts to advance towards him, her voice getting louder and louder, "How about if I didn't answer your messages for hours on end? If I didn't even let you know where I was? I bet you wouldn't be so cavalier about that, would you?!"

Now Dan loses his temper and she would very nearly have retreated, "That's not fair! I am not having this argument, I am tired and you are upset, so can we just drop it before we say something we regret?"

"No! I won't! Just because you're the guy in this relationship, you don't get to say when we drop things or not, and just because you happen to be so much older than me and not wiser, I'm expected to just take everything you say?"

By now, she is only a few feet away from him, almost within slapping distance, but she just about manages to restrain herself, and the look on his face is both sad and defiant.

He sighs heavily, though his words are still cutting, "You are being such a brat right now, and it really doesn't suit you."

Her face flushes hot and she shoves her hands against his chest quite roughly, "Don't you lecture me. You have no idea how scared I was when you didn't even bother to text me a stupid emoji or even 'Okay' when you knew that I needed to talk to you, but you are so far up your own ass that you didn't even care about how I felt, and frankly, that doesn't suit you!"

She takes out her phone and throws it on the sofa with some force, that had it not landed on the cushions, it surely would have shattered.

Dan has not quite recovered from her brief shove, and now the tears are in his eyes, as if only just realising just how much this had hurt her, "Look... I have to live my life, too. You can't be worrying about me and getting in a state and I don't want to argue with you about meaningless shit when we were doing just fine before."

Her head drops and she can barely stand to look at him anymore, "You don't understand one bit. Fine... if you can't even talk to me about this, then I'm going to disappear without my phone and you can see what it's like."

She stomps past him, her vision blinkered as she heads for the door, fully intent on driving in any direction away from here.

But in an instant, her wrist has been grabbed rather tightly and she is pulled in a semicircle back towards him.

"No, you are not leaving."

Horrified, she struggles to take her arm back from him, "Let go! Let me go, right now!"

Dan shakes his head, his apparent strength almost overpowering, "You are not driving when you are like this, so just stop!"

"No! I can run away if I want, if I can't even stomach you, so let me go!! Let go of me!"

Her heels begin to skid on the carpet as he begins to drag her back into the living room, though his actions appear to be more motivated by desperation rather than outright anger, but she can hardly tell the difference as her vision is blurred with tears and throat rending with her screaming.

"Let go!! Let me go!! /Let me go!!/"

As he forcefully pulls her closer to him, she brings her other fist up and lands a solid thump on his chest that stuns him for a moment, before he has hold of both her wrists, the task quite difficult as she is more or less hitting him quite hard, and pulls her into a very clumsy hug, fighting to keep his balance as she fights to break free of him.

Her protests dissolve into wordless shrieks, still beating her hands against his chest, but as soon as she is enveloped in the scent of him, the constant thumping of his heartbeat, the realisation that he was alive, then all the fights leaves her as she presses her hands to her face and her sobs are muffled by her hands, as she sags completely against him, knees bending as she collapses into herself and he has to drop to his knees quite heavily, still cradling her close.

The only noise in the apartment is the steady ticking of the clock and the sound of their combined breathing, the wail of sirens echoing in the distance.

When she does quieten down, Dan is resting his cheek on top of her head and had begun to rock her from side to side, beginning a quiet humming punctuated by soft shushing.

While she had been prepared to remain completely angry at him, that feeling was being replaced piece by piece by the overwhelming adoration she felt for this man, despite his mistakes.

Slowly, her hands lower down from her face and slide around his shoulders, shifting closer to him as they sit together on the floor just feet from the front door, holding on quite tightly, pressing her lips to his skin where his neck meets his shoulder.

"Hey... are you alright?"

"My throat hurts."

"Yeah... screaming will do that. My head hurts from all of this..."

Voice choked by sudden tears, she whispers, "Can you at least try to understand why I was so worried, Danny? Please try... please..."

Dan is stroking his fingers through her hair, slowly and gently, before he quietly admits, "I think I can... I know how I'd feel if you didn't reply to me after a few hours. I would... I would be worried."

"There you are, then. It's as simple as that."

Her knees are beginning to protest from kneeling on the floor for too long, so she carefully sits back on her heels, though not separating from Dan, who is looking rather downcast, before he lifts his head to regard her quietly.

"I'm so sorry that I didn't reach out to you sooner. I don't think, sometimes. I had no idea it would upset you so much."

She swallows thickly, "Of course it did. I want to know if you're okay, that you're still breathing..."

Those final few words escape without her even thinking, and she prayed that she had not said too much or would come across as too emotional.

Dan's eyes are glimmering with unshed tears, "I'm so sorry..."

He leans forward and presses a kiss to her nose, followed by several more soft kisses to her forehead and her cheeks, before he murmurs against her lips, "I love you, baby. I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm sorry that I hurt you, I don't ever want to hurt you. I'm an old man who has so much to learn, still. Please... please give me another chance. Please, baby... I don't know what I'd do without you, if you're not right here beside me. I didn't want you to leave because I need you here. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Her face crumples and she leans into him all the way, giving him a kiss and whispering, "I'm not leaving you. I couldn't... I'm not strong enough. I'm sorry for pushing you and screaming like that... I can't leave you... and I love you..."

He kisses her back with urgency, hands roaming up and down her back, tangling in her hair as she squeezes the muscles in his shoulders.

Just as Dan leans back, he reaches back to brace his hand behind him, pulling back a few inches to mumble with a smile, "Baby... I want to make it up to you, but I draw the line at making love on the carpet."

Her smile is tearful but bright, "I'll have to agree with you."

"I'm glad you do."

Giving her a charming wink, she chuckles as he helps her up and he makes a small noise, "Oh no, my foot is asleep. Help."

Unable to keep from laughing, she says gently, "Go take a walk around and I will warm up dinner."

He feigns a wounded look, "No sympathy from you, right?"

"Well, my knees are aching, so we can suffer together. But after dinner, I want us to cuddle together and fall asleep while you sing to me. Can that be arranged?"

Dan smiles, taking a light hold of her chin and tilting her face up towards him, "For you, sweetheart, I'd gladly sing you a hundred songs until the end of time."

She smiles back, though she cannot help but make one final request, "Just promise me that you'll check your phone sometimes, and let me know that you're okay. You can even send me an emoji. Just one sign that you're okay."

Dan tilts his head, the charming smirk returning, "Would the winkey frown suit you?"

Laughing, she leans up to kiss him again, "That would be absolutely perfect."


End file.
